David Spelman
Encyclopedia
David Spelman is a New York-based music producer and curator
working in recordings, films and live events
of the Johns Hopkins University
and the New England Conservatory, where he was selected as one of the one-hundred most distinguished alumni, as part of the 2004 Centenary Celebration of Jordan Hall
. At the Peabody Institute he studied renaissance lute with Ronn McFarlane, and performed in the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble. At the New England Conservatory he was a student of classical guitarist David Leisner
.
In a 2009 interview with Allan Kozinn
, published in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure, Spelman discussed the influence of classical guitarist and composer Benjamin Verdery, whom he'd first encountered in a master class in Santa Cruz, California.
In the 1980s, Spelman trained in acoustic guitar design and construction under Jeff Trougott, the Santa Cruz-based luthier
known for making custom acoustic guitars for musicians including Charlie Hunter
and John Mayer
.
in 1999. The festival's first season included just three concerts at Merkin Concert Hall
, but in later years expanded to include venues throughout the city, including Carnegie Hall
, The World Financial Center
Winter Garden, The 92nd Street Y
, Joe’s Pub, The Jazz Standard, Le Poisson Rogue, Flushing Town Hall, Makor, BB King Blues Club, The Monkey, Barbes, and The Apple Store theater in SoHo. The festival attracts recognition in the international media, has built partnerships with leading NPR
stations for live radio broadcasts, and assisted in the launch of sister festivals in cities in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia[2]. Spelman serves as the festival's Artistic Director
.
's Mark Eitzel
(who contributed a cover of the Ira Gershwin
song 'S Wonderful
), post-rock chamber ensembles Clogs
(featuring Padma Newsome and Bryce Dessner
of The National
), Redhooker, and Arcade Fire side project Bell Orchestre
. The film had its premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
.
Spelman has commissioned scores by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/673fa6c4-09d6-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0.html, Bill Frisell
, Marc Ribot
, James Blackshaw
, Gyan Riley, David Bromberg
, Steve Kimock
, Alex de Grassi
, and Chicha Libra, for classic silent films by Charlie Chaplin
, Buster Keaton
, Harry Everett Smith
, Yasujiro Ozu
, Wu Yonggang
, and Georges Melies
.
's James Bradshaw wrote: "to attract top-flight talent, Luminato tapped into the mind and rolodex of David Spelman." Programing highlights included free outdoor concerts by Goran Bregovic
, The Derek Trucks Band, Daniel Lanois
, Taj Mahal, Randy Bachman, Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya
, an all-day Brazilian Guitar Marathon (co-curated by The Assad Duo), and a sold-out tribute to Neil Young at Massey Hall
, featuring the Cowboy Junkies
; Holly Cole
; Danny Michel
; Steven Page
; Carole Pope
; Bill Frisell
Trio; Issa (formerly Jane Siberry); Colin Linden
; Stevie Jackson
(Belle & Sebastian
); Harry Manx
; Jason Collett
; Sarah Slean
and musical director Kevin Breit
. The Neil Young
tribute attracted front page coverage in local and national newspapers, and was broadcast on CBC Radio
.
, modeled on the New York Guitar Festival
. The three-day festival attracts more than 15 thousand patrons, and has received praise in Chicago, Guitar Player, and Down Beat
. Initially called The Wall To Wall Guitar Festival, the festival's name was changed in 2009 to Ellnora, The Guitar Festival http://www.ellnoraguitarfestival.com/, in honor of Ellnora Krannert, one of the founders of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
.
On September 11, 2009, the festival presented the world premiere of The Long Count, a 70-minute multi-media work described as "twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner
, best known as members of The National, join their musicianship with the narrative, set, and film work of visual artist Matthew Ritchie
for an hour-long phenomenon that weaves the colors and cardinal directions of Mayan myth with the layout of a baseball diamond in an exploration of time and space commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Singers Matt Berninger
(of The National), Shara Worden
(of My Brightest Diamond
), and sisters Kim and Kelley Deal (of The Breeders
) will perform original compositions by the Dessners that will fuse with the continuous soundscape of a 12-person orchestra for a condensed visual epic brought to life through projected images and a mirrored stage surface." Following the Krannert Center performance, the work had its New York premiere in October 2009 at the Brookylyn Academy of Music, travels to Amsterdam in June 2011 as part of the Holland Festival, and there are plans for an album release.
The 2011 Ellnora festival took place September 8–10 and the line-up included Luther Dickinson
as Artist-in-Residence, the world premiere of a multimedia work about the 1927 Mississippi River flood by Bill Frisell
and filmmaker Bill Morrison, and performances by Calexico
, Lee Ranaldo
, My Brightest Diamond
, Richard Thompson
, Daniel Lanois
’ Black Dub, Sharon Isbin
, Taj Mahal, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Adrian Belew
, Robert Randolph, The Tony Rice
Unit, Cindy Cashdollar
, and Marc Ribot
.
, Arts World Financial Center enlisted David Spelman to curate and produce a tribute to Pablo Neruda
, the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature
winner. The event, Songs of Love & Despair: A Musical Tribute to Pablo Neruda, featured performances and readings by Clogs, the Czech experimental musician Irene & Vojtech Havel, Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuña, Colin Stetson (Sway Machinery, Bell Orchestre, Arcade Fire), Pedro Soler with Basque vocal improviser Beñat Achiary, poet and Bowery Poetry Club
founder Bob Holman
, experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson
, and rock musician Lou Reed
.
In 2005 and 2006 Spelman was appointed curator of Other Words/Other Worlds, a festival celebrating National Jazz and Poetry Month at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, New York. The festival featured workshops, film screenings, musical performances, and a 24-hour poetry jam session. Musicians who performed included Matthew Shipp
, The Nat Jones Trio, Peter Apfelbaum
, Chris Cheek
, as well as local high-school jazz ensembles. Readings included Spanish, Russian, Korean and Chinese poets, a second grade poetry club, and poets Everton Sylverton, Bob Holman
, and Hal Sirowitz
.
In the early 1990s Spelman served as music director and co-producer of Third Friday Respite, a series of literary readings and classical music performances at Manhattan’s Church of the Advent Hope. Highlights included a reading of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as well as a year-long, complete reading of John Milton
’s epic 17th century poem Paradise Lost
.
, Spelman has organized gallery exhibits in New York and Toronto by photographers Ralph Gibson
, Danny Clinch
, Andy Summers
, Jack Vartoogian, Steve Sherman, Rahav Segev, and Hank O’Neal. He has also organized an exhibition of vintage music posters by Milton Glaser
.
to launch and oversee artistic direction of a major international music festival. The ten-day Adelaide International Guitar Festival
was modeled on the New York Guitar Festival
, and drew 30 thousand people in the first year. The event had a three-million dollar budget and received a four-year grant from the South Australian Government. The Adelaide Review wrote that "never before have we had a festival like this... the Guitar Festival was a roaring success and an unqualified winner." Rolling Stone
called it "a genuinely international event."
Project, a concert at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall
celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Bob Dylan
album. The event was broadcast live on WFUV and as a two-hour radio special, syndicated to more than fifty NPR
affiliates. His 2006 Nebraska Project, featured a diverse set of performers, including Dan Zanes
, Michelle Shocked
, The National
, Chocolate Genius, Martha Wainwright
, and Bruce Springsteen
, and received extensive press coverage, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Billboard, and Pitchfork. The concert was filmed, with Fugazi’s Brendan Canty
directing, for future DVD release. In 2007 his two-night American Beauty Project included performances by Jay Farrar
, The Holmes Brothers
, Sex Mob, Jim Lauderdale
, Ollabelle
, Dar Williams
, and The Klezmatics
, drew capacity crowds at New York’s Winter Garden, has toured to several cities in North America, and in January 2009 had a repeat performance at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
as part of the American Songbook series.
Other multi-artist tributes produced by Spelman include New York concerts celebrating the musical legacies of Andrés Segovia
, Jimi Hendrix
, Leo Kottke
, Michael Hedges
, John Fahey
, Skip James
, Robert Johnson
, Charley Patton, Elizabeth Cotten
, Neil Young
, George Harrison
, Jerry Garcia
, Tom Waits
, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard
, Loretta Lynn
, Lefty Frizzell
, the Reverend Gary Davis
, Mississippi John Hurt
, and Terry Riley
.
The first public series coincided with the alternative-music festival All Tomorrow’s Parties
, and included performances and talks featuring award-winning filmmakers, cartoonists, musicians and visual artists. The TriCity News' Dan Jacobson wrote that: "This is serious stuff. What Spelman is initiating is among the most promising events we've seen for Asbury Park, If it catches on, it could be big. And it could spin off in all different and promising ways for our city."
.
The Virginia EP, The National, (Brassland, 2008). Mixing Engineer, for "Mansion on the Hill," originally recorded by Bruce Springsteen
.
Guitar Harvest (Solid Air, 2005): Co-producer. A two-CD compilation, featuring Andy Summers
, Bill Frisell
, Vernon Reid
, Ralph Towner
, Henry Kaiser
, Alex de Grassi
and other artists. Mojo
gave it a four-star review, saying “This largely acoustic set is guaranteed to leave guitar buffs drooling,” while Total Guitar
noted that “Not only does it feature some of the most astonishing guitar playing we’ve heard all year… but all proceeds go to buying guitars and guitar lessons for inner city kids.”
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
working in recordings, films and live events
Early life
Spelman was educated at the Peabody InstitutePeabody Institute
The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a renowned conservatory and preparatory school located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland at the corner of Charles and Monument Streets at Mount Vernon Place.-History:...
of the Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
and the New England Conservatory, where he was selected as one of the one-hundred most distinguished alumni, as part of the 2004 Centenary Celebration of Jordan Hall
Jordan Hall
Jordan Hall is a 1,019-seat concert hall in Boston, Massachusetts, the principal performance space of the New England Conservatory. It is one block from Boston's Symphony Hall, and together they are considered two of America's most acoustically perfect performance spaces...
. At the Peabody Institute he studied renaissance lute with Ronn McFarlane, and performed in the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble. At the New England Conservatory he was a student of classical guitarist David Leisner
David Leisner
David Leisner is a classical guitarist, composer, teacher at the Manhattan School of Music and one of the leading authorities on focal dystonia, due to being impaired by the injury for 12 years and recovering through methods that he developed and now teaches his students.-Biography:David Leisner...
.
In a 2009 interview with Allan Kozinn
Allan Kozinn
-Biography:He received bachelor's degrees in music and journalism from Syracuse University in 1976. He began freelancing as a critic and music feature writer for the New York Times in 1977, and joined the paper's staff in 1991...
, published in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure, Spelman discussed the influence of classical guitarist and composer Benjamin Verdery, whom he'd first encountered in a master class in Santa Cruz, California.
In the 1980s, Spelman trained in acoustic guitar design and construction under Jeff Trougott, the Santa Cruz-based luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
known for making custom acoustic guitars for musicians including Charlie Hunter
Charlie Hunter
for the New Zealand racehorse trainer and driver see: Charlie HunterCharlie Hunter is an American guitarist, composer and bandleader....
and John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
.
New York Guitar Festival
Together with author and WNYC Radio host John Schaefer, Spelman founded the New York Guitar FestivalNew York Guitar Festival
The New York Guitar Festival is a music festival founded by radio host and author John Schaefer and musician, producer and curator David Spelman, who serves at the festival's Artistic Director...
in 1999. The festival's first season included just three concerts at Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School , a New York City public school for...
, but in later years expanded to include venues throughout the city, including Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, The World Financial Center
World Financial Center
The World Financial Center is a complex of buildings across West Street from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan in New York City, overlooking the Hudson River. This complex is home to offices of companies including Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, Nomura Group, the Wall Street...
Winter Garden, The 92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
, Joe’s Pub, The Jazz Standard, Le Poisson Rogue, Flushing Town Hall, Makor, BB King Blues Club, The Monkey, Barbes, and The Apple Store theater in SoHo. The festival attracts recognition in the international media, has built partnerships with leading NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
stations for live radio broadcasts, and assisted in the launch of sister festivals in cities in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia[2]. Spelman serves as the festival's Artistic Director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
.
Film projects
In 2010, Spelman served as music supervisor for Vidal Sassoon The Movie, a feature-length documentary about revolutionary hairstylist Vidal Sassoon. The soundtrack features music by American Music ClubAmerican Music Club
American Music Club is a San Francisco-based alternative rock band led by singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel.-History:Although born in California, Eitzel spent his formative years in Okinawa, Taiwan, Great Britain and Ohio before returning to the Bay Area in 1981...
's Mark Eitzel
Mark Eitzel
Mark Eitzel is a musician, best known as a songwriter and lead singer of the San Francisco band American Music Club.-History:Eitzel spent his formative years in a military family living in Okinawa, Taiwan, Ohio and the United Kingdom. He moved to America in 1979.He started making music while he was...
(who contributed a cover of the Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
song 'S Wonderful
'S Wonderful
S Wonderful" is a popular song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics written by Ira Gershwin. It was introduced in the Broadway musical Funny Face by Adele Astaire and Allen Kearns....
), post-rock chamber ensembles Clogs
Clogs (band)
Clogs are a mostly instrumental project led by Bryce Dessner and Australia's Padma Newsome. Their existence predates Dessner's other band The National...
(featuring Padma Newsome and Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner is a Brooklyn based composer, guitarist, and curator primarily known as a member of The National. In addition to his work with The National, he is a founding member of Clogs, and the founder of the MusicNOW Festival. Bryce has a master's degree in classical guitar from Yale University...
of The National
The National (band)
The National is an indie rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1999 and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. The band's lyrics are written and sung by Matt Berninger, a baritone...
), Redhooker, and Arcade Fire side project Bell Orchestre
Bell Orchestre
Bell Orchestre is a six-piece instrumental band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.In late 2003, they recorded their first album, at the same time and in the same studio that Arcade Fire recorded Funeral. However, Arcade Fire's popularity was just beginning to break when they asked Bell Orchestre to...
. The film had its premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
.
Spelman has commissioned scores by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver
Bon Iver
Bon Iver is a Grammy nominated folk band founded in 2007 by American indie folk singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. It includes Michael Noyce, Sean Carey, and Matthew McCaughan. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago independently in July 2007. The majority of that album was...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/673fa6c4-09d6-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0.html, Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
, Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
, James Blackshaw
James Blackshaw
James Blackshaw is a Hastings-based guitarist and pianist, born in 1981. Blackshaw primarily plays an acoustic 12 string guitar and has been compared to Bert Jansch, Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Jack Rose, and Leo Kottke. To enable his fingerstyle playing, Blackshaw has grown long picklike fingernails...
, Gyan Riley, David Bromberg
David Bromberg
David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...
, Steve Kimock
Steve Kimock
-External links:** at the Internet Archive's live music archive* at the Internet Archive's live music archive* at Internet Archive's live music archive*, San Francisco, April 3, 1999*, Unofficial Fan Forum...
, Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi is an American Grammy Award-nominated fingerstyle guitarist.-Early life and influences:Though born in Yokosuka, Japan, de Grassi grew up in San Francisco, California, where his grandfather played violin for the San Francisco Symphony and his father was a classical pianist...
, and Chicha Libra, for classic silent films by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
, Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...
, Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, Wu Yonggang
Wu Yonggang
Wu Yonggang was a prominent Chinese film director during the 1930s. Today Wu is best known for his directorial debut, The Goddess. Wu had a long career with the Lianhua Film Company in the 1930s, in Chongqing during the war, and in the mainland after the 1949 communist revolution...
, and Georges Melies
Georges Méliès
Georges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...
.
Luminato – Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity
In 2009, this multi-disciplinary, international arts festival hired Spelman as Guest Curator to oversee the festival's music programing. The Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
's James Bradshaw wrote: "to attract top-flight talent, Luminato tapped into the mind and rolodex of David Spelman." Programing highlights included free outdoor concerts by Goran Bregovic
Goran Bregovic
Goran Bregović is one of the most internationally known modern musicians and composers of the Balkans. He currently splits his time between Paris and Belgrade, where he settled down during the Yugoslav Wars.Bregović has composed for such varied artists as Iggy Pop and Cesária Évora...
, The Derek Trucks Band, Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
, Taj Mahal, Randy Bachman, Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya
Debashish Bhattacharya
Debashish Bhattacharya is an Indian classical musician who plays the lap slide guitar.Bhattacharya was born into a musical family in Kolkata, it became apparent that Bhattacharya was skilled at a young age...
, an all-day Brazilian Guitar Marathon (co-curated by The Assad Duo), and a sold-out tribute to Neil Young at Massey Hall
Massey Hall
Massey Hall is a venerable performing arts theatre in the Garden District of downtown Toronto. The theatre originally was designed to seat 3,500 patrons but, after extensive renovations in the 1940s, now seats up to 2,765....
, featuring the Cowboy Junkies
Cowboy Junkies
Cowboy Junkies are a Canadian alternative country/blues/folk rock band. The group was formed in Toronto in 1985 by Margo Timmins , Michael Timmins , Peter Timmins and Alan Anton ....
; Holly Cole
Holly Cole
Holly Cole is a Canadian jazz singer, particularly popular in Canada and Japan for both her versatile and distinctive voice, along with her adventurous repertoire, which spans such divergent genres as show tunes, rock, and country music.-Holly Cole Trio:In 1983, Cole travelled to Toronto to seek a...
; Danny Michel
Danny Michel
Danny Michel is a singer-songwriter from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.- Biography :Danny Michel was born in 1970 next to the "Smiles n' Chuckles" chocolate factory in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada...
; Steven Page
Steven Page
Steven Jay Page , is a Canadian musician. Along with Ed Robertson, he was a founding member, lead singer, guitarist, and a primary songwriter of the music group Barenaked Ladies ; he left the band in 2009 to pursue a solo career....
; Carole Pope
Carole Pope
Carole Pope is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, whose provocative blend of hard-edged New Wave rock with explicit homoerotic and BDSM-themed lyrics made her one of the first openly lesbian famous entertainers in the world...
; Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
Trio; Issa (formerly Jane Siberry); Colin Linden
Colin Linden
Colin Linden is a Canadian musician, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with a wide variety of artists including Bruce Cockburn, Lucinda Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Colin James, Leon Redbone, Rita Chiarelli, Chris Thomas King and The Band.Linden is primarily a electric blues guitarist,...
; Stevie Jackson
Stevie Jackson
Stevie Jackson is a Scottish musician and songwriter. He plays lead guitar and sings in the Glasgow based indie band Belle & Sebastian. Jackson's guitar playing is distinctively retrogressive and melodic, with a heavy use of reverb and minimal effects...
(Belle & Sebastian
Belle & Sebastian
Belle and Sebastian are an indie pop band formed in Glasgow in January 1996. Belle and Sebastian are often compared with influential indie bands such as The Smiths, as well as classic acts such as Love, Bob Dylan and Nick Drake. The name Belle & Sebastian comes from Belle et Sébastien, a 1965...
); Harry Manx
Harry Manx
Harry Manx is a musician who blends blues, folk music, and Hindustani classical music. He was born in the Isle of Man where he spent his childhood and now lives on Saltspring Island, British Columbia, Canada....
; Jason Collett
Jason Collett
Jason Collett is a Toronto based singer-songwriter. He has released four solo albums, and is a member of Broken Social Scene. His latest album, Rat a Tat Tat, was released in March, 2010.-Early life:...
; Sarah Slean
Sarah Slean
Sarah Hope Slean is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and occasional actress from Pickering, Ontario. She has released eleven albums to date .-Major recordings:...
and musical director Kevin Breit
Kevin Breit
Kevin Breit is a guitar player from McKerrow, Ontario. His group, The Sisters Euclid, has been a fixture at the Orbit Room in Toronto for the past 13 years. Breit has worked as a session musician with a variety of musicians including The Miller Stain Limit, Norah Jones, Michael Kaeshammer, Celine...
. The Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
tribute attracted front page coverage in local and national newspapers, and was broadcast on CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
.
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
In 2005 Spelman was invited to launch and oversee a biannual guitar festival in Urbana, IllinoisUrbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
, modeled on the New York Guitar Festival
New York Guitar Festival
The New York Guitar Festival is a music festival founded by radio host and author John Schaefer and musician, producer and curator David Spelman, who serves at the festival's Artistic Director...
. The three-day festival attracts more than 15 thousand patrons, and has received praise in Chicago, Guitar Player, and Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
. Initially called The Wall To Wall Guitar Festival, the festival's name was changed in 2009 to Ellnora, The Guitar Festival http://www.ellnoraguitarfestival.com/, in honor of Ellnora Krannert, one of the founders of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts was built in 1969 in Urbana, Illinois, USA, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an educational and performing arts complex. Herman C...
.
On September 11, 2009, the festival presented the world premiere of The Long Count, a 70-minute multi-media work described as "twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner is a Brooklyn based composer, guitarist, and curator primarily known as a member of The National. In addition to his work with The National, he is a founding member of Clogs, and the founder of the MusicNOW Festival. Bryce has a master's degree in classical guitar from Yale University...
, best known as members of The National, join their musicianship with the narrative, set, and film work of visual artist Matthew Ritchie
Matthew Ritchie
Ritchie attended the Camberwell School of Art 1983-86. He describes himself as "classically trained" but also points to a minimalist influence.Ritchie's art revolves around a personal mythology drawn from creation myths, particle physics, thermodynamics, and games of chance, among other...
for an hour-long phenomenon that weaves the colors and cardinal directions of Mayan myth with the layout of a baseball diamond in an exploration of time and space commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Singers Matt Berninger
Matt Berninger
Matt Berninger is a Cincinnati native, Brooklyn based singer/songwriter, primarily known as the frontman of indie rock band The National.-Vocals:...
(of The National), Shara Worden
Shara Worden
Shara Worden is the lead singer and songwriter for My Brightest Diamond. She was previously a backup vocalist for Sufjan Stevens and the frontwoman of Awry.-Life:...
(of My Brightest Diamond
My Brightest Diamond
My Brightest Diamond is the project of singer–songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden. The band has released two studio albums, 2006's Bring Me the Workhorse and 2008's A Thousand Shark's Teeth, along with a remix album Tear It Down and a download-only release through iTunes...
), and sisters Kim and Kelley Deal (of The Breeders
The Breeders
The Breeders are an American alternative rock band formed in 1988 by Kim Deal of the Pixies and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses. The band has experienced a number of line-up changes; the current line-up consists of Kim Deal , her twin sister Kelley Deal , Jose Medeles , Mando Lopez Todd the Fox...
) will perform original compositions by the Dessners that will fuse with the continuous soundscape of a 12-person orchestra for a condensed visual epic brought to life through projected images and a mirrored stage surface." Following the Krannert Center performance, the work had its New York premiere in October 2009 at the Brookylyn Academy of Music, travels to Amsterdam in June 2011 as part of the Holland Festival, and there are plans for an album release.
The 2011 Ellnora festival took place September 8–10 and the line-up included Luther Dickinson
Luther Dickinson
Luther Dickinson is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the North Mississippi Allstars as well as lead guitarist for The Black Crowes...
as Artist-in-Residence, the world premiere of a multimedia work about the 1927 Mississippi River flood by Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
and filmmaker Bill Morrison, and performances by Calexico
Calexico
Calexico is a Tucson, Arizona-based Americana / Alternative country band. The band's two main members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, first played together in Los Angeles as part of the group Giant Sand. They have recorded a number of albums on Quarterstick Records, while their 2005 EP In the...
, Lee Ranaldo
Lee Ranaldo
Lee M. Ranaldo is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth...
, My Brightest Diamond
My Brightest Diamond
My Brightest Diamond is the project of singer–songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden. The band has released two studio albums, 2006's Bring Me the Workhorse and 2008's A Thousand Shark's Teeth, along with a remix album Tear It Down and a download-only release through iTunes...
, Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson
Richard John Thompson OBE is a British songwriter, guitarist and recording and performing musician. Highly regarded for his guitar techniques, Thompson was awarded the Orville H. Gibson award for best acoustic guitar player in 1991...
, Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
’ Black Dub, Sharon Isbin
Sharon Isbin
Sharon Isbin is a widely-recorded American classical guitarist, recording artist, concertizer, and the founder of the Guitar Department at the Juilliard School.-Early life and education:...
, Taj Mahal, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Adrian Belew
Adrian Belew
Adrian Belew is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer...
, Robert Randolph, The Tony Rice
Tony Rice
Tony Rice is an American acoustic guitarist and bluegrass musician. He is considered one of the most influential acoustic guitar players in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz.Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from traditional bluegrass to jazz-influenced New...
Unit, Cindy Cashdollar
Cindy Cashdollar
Cindy Cashdollar is a steel guitar and Dobro artist. She grew up in Woodstock, New York where she perfected her skills by playing with bluegrass musician John Herald, blues musician Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm and Rick Danko of The Band.Cashdollar received five Grammy awards while playing...
, and Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
.
Literary events
In April 2009, for National Poetry MonthNational Poetry Month
National Poetry Month is a celebration of poetry first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It is celebrated every April in the United States and in Canada as well...
, Arts World Financial Center enlisted David Spelman to curate and produce a tribute to Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....
, the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
winner. The event, Songs of Love & Despair: A Musical Tribute to Pablo Neruda, featured performances and readings by Clogs, the Czech experimental musician Irene & Vojtech Havel, Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuña, Colin Stetson (Sway Machinery, Bell Orchestre, Arcade Fire), Pedro Soler with Basque vocal improviser Beñat Achiary, poet and Bowery Poetry Club
Bowery Poetry Club
The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002. Located at 308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston Streets in Manhattan's East Village, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists...
founder Bob Holman
Bob Holman
Bob Holman is a poet and poetry activist in the United States.- Career :After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, Bob Holman founded, with Sara Miles and Susie Timmons, the NYC Poetry Calendar, a free monthly publication with all the readings and poets "on the same page"...
, experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
, and rock musician Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
.
In 2005 and 2006 Spelman was appointed curator of Other Words/Other Worlds, a festival celebrating National Jazz and Poetry Month at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, New York. The festival featured workshops, film screenings, musical performances, and a 24-hour poetry jam session. Musicians who performed included Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp is an American pianist, composer and bandleader.Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and began playing piano at six years old. His mother was a friend of trumpeter Clifford Brown....
, The Nat Jones Trio, Peter Apfelbaum
Peter Apfelbaum
Peter Apfelbaum is an American avant-garde jazz pianist, tenor saxophonist, drummer and composer born in Berkeley, California. He first emerged on the jazz scene in the late 1970s, performing with Carla Bley from 1978–1982 and touring with Warren Smith and Karl Berger. Around this time Apfelbaum...
, Chris Cheek
Chris Cheek
Chris Cheek is an American jazz saxophonist. He has worked as a sideman on more than sixty albums in his career, and has been bandleader of four critically acclaimed solo albums.-Biography:Cheek was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri...
, as well as local high-school jazz ensembles. Readings included Spanish, Russian, Korean and Chinese poets, a second grade poetry club, and poets Everton Sylverton, Bob Holman
Bob Holman
Bob Holman is a poet and poetry activist in the United States.- Career :After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, Bob Holman founded, with Sara Miles and Susie Timmons, the NYC Poetry Calendar, a free monthly publication with all the readings and poets "on the same page"...
, and Hal Sirowitz
Hal Sirowitz
Hal Sirowitz is an American poet.Sirowitz first began to attract attention at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe where he was a frequent competitor in their Friday Night Poetry Slam...
.
In the early 1990s Spelman served as music director and co-producer of Third Friday Respite, a series of literary readings and classical music performances at Manhattan’s Church of the Advent Hope. Highlights included a reading of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as well as a year-long, complete reading of John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
’s epic 17th century poem Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
.
Visual arts
As a visual arts curatorCurator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
, Spelman has organized gallery exhibits in New York and Toronto by photographers Ralph Gibson
Ralph Gibson
Ralph Gibson is an American art photographer best known for his photographic books. His images often incorporate fragments with erotic and mysterious undertones, building narrative meaning through contextualization and surreal juxtaposition.Ralph Gibson studied photography while in the US Navy and...
, Danny Clinch
Danny Clinch
Danny Clinch is a photographer and film director who was born in Toms River, New Jersey in 1964. He graduated from Toms River High School East in 1982 and after attending Ocean County College, he attended the New England School of Photography, a two-year institution located in Boston, MA.Clinch...
, Andy Summers
Andy Summers
Andy Summers is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed...
, Jack Vartoogian, Steve Sherman, Rahav Segev, and Hank O’Neal. He has also organized an exhibition of vintage music posters by Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...
.
Adelaide International Guitar Festival
In 2007, Spelman was recruited by the Adelaide Festival CentreAdelaide Festival Centre
The Adelaide Festival Centre, Australia's first multi-purpose arts centre, was built in 1973 and opened three months before the Sydney Opera House. The Festival Centre is located approximately 50 metres north of the corner of North Terrace and King William Street, lying near the banks of the River...
to launch and oversee artistic direction of a major international music festival. The ten-day Adelaide International Guitar Festival
Adelaide International Guitar Festival
The Adelaide International Guitar Festival is Australia’s largest guitar festival, held biennially in the South Australian Capital of Adelaide. The AIGF is the sister event to the New York Guitar Festival...
was modeled on the New York Guitar Festival
New York Guitar Festival
The New York Guitar Festival is a music festival founded by radio host and author John Schaefer and musician, producer and curator David Spelman, who serves at the festival's Artistic Director...
, and drew 30 thousand people in the first year. The event had a three-million dollar budget and received a four-year grant from the South Australian Government. The Adelaide Review wrote that "never before have we had a festival like this... the Guitar Festival was a roaring success and an unqualified winner." Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
called it "a genuinely international event."
Live tribute events
David Spelman has created concert tributes to landmark record albums. In 2004 he produced the Blood on the TracksBlood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks is Bob Dylan's 15th studio album, released by Columbia Records in January 1975. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records....
Project, a concert at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School , a New York City public school for...
celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
album. The event was broadcast live on WFUV and as a two-hour radio special, syndicated to more than fifty NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
affiliates. His 2006 Nebraska Project, featured a diverse set of performers, including Dan Zanes
Dan Zanes
Dan Zanes was a member of the popular 1980s band The Del Fuegos and is currently the front man of the Grammy-winning group Dan Zanes and Friends.-History:...
, Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked is the stage name of Michelle Karen Johnston, an American singer-songwriter.-History:Shocked received her first international exposure in Europe, particularly Britain, with her debut album The Texas Campfire Tapes .Her first U.S...
, The National
The National (band)
The National is an indie rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1999 and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. The band's lyrics are written and sung by Matt Berninger, a baritone...
, Chocolate Genius, Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American folk-rock singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of American folk singer and actor Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle...
, and Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, and received extensive press coverage, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Billboard, and Pitchfork. The concert was filmed, with Fugazi’s Brendan Canty
Brendan Canty
Brendan Canty is an American musician, composer, producer and film maker, best known as the drummer for the band Fugazi....
directing, for future DVD release. In 2007 his two-night American Beauty Project included performances by Jay Farrar
Jay Farrar
Jay Farrar is an American songwriter and musician currently based in St. Louis, Missouri. A veteran of two critically acclaimed music groups, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, he began his solo music career in 2001...
, The Holmes Brothers
The Holmes Brothers
The Holmes Brothers are a vocal and instrumental trio originally from Christchurch, Virginia. Mixing sounds from blues, soul, gospel, and rhythm & blues, they have released nine original albums, with two reaching the top 5 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. They have gained a following by playing...
, Sex Mob, Jim Lauderdale
Jim Lauderdale
Jim Lauderdale is a musician & singer-songwriter who performs bluegrass and country music. He has recorded since 1986 and has released nineteen studio albums. Artists who have recorded his material include George Strait and Patty Loveless.-Biography:...
, Ollabelle
Ollabelle
Ollabelle is a New York based folk music group named after the influential Appalachian songwriter Ola Belle Reed. The group is composed of five singing multi-instrumentalists hailing from disparate parts of the United States, Canada and Australia.-History:...
, Dar Williams
Dar Williams
Dar Williams is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop folk.She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, The Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez, and Catie Curtis.-Biography:Williams was born...
, and The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics are a Grammy Award-winning American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins...
, drew capacity crowds at New York’s Winter Garden, has toured to several cities in North America, and in January 2009 had a repeat performance at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
as part of the American Songbook series.
Other multi-artist tributes produced by Spelman include New York concerts celebrating the musical legacies of Andrés Segovia
Andrés Segovia
Andrés Torres Segovia, 1st Marquis of Salobreña , known as Andrés Segovia, was a virtuoso Spanish classical guitarist from Linares, Jaén, Andalucia, Spain...
, Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...
, Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges
Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...
, John Fahey
John Fahey
John Fahey may refer to:* John Fahey , American guitarist and composer* John Fahey , former state premier of New South Wales, Australia, and later Australian federal Finance Minister, current President of WADA...
, Skip James
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
, Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given...
, Charley Patton, Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter.A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Cotten developed her own original style. Her approach involved using a right-handed guitar , not re-strung for left-handed playing, essentially, holding a right-handed...
, Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
, Loretta Lynn
Loretta Lynn
Loretta Lynn is an American country music singer-songwriter, author and philanthropist. Born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to a coal miner father, Lynn married at 13 years old, was a mother soon after, and moved to Washington with her husband, Oliver Lynn. Their marriage was sometimes tumultuous; he...
, Lefty Frizzell
Lefty Frizzell
Lefty Frizzell , born William Orville Frizzell, was an American country music singer and songwriter of the 1950s, and a proponent of honky tonk music. His relaxed style of singing was an influence on later stars Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, George Jones and John Fogerty...
, the Reverend Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, was an American blues and gospel singer and guitarist, who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica...
, Mississippi John Hurt
Mississippi John Hurt
John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...
, and Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
.
Sonic Garden Arts Collective
In the summer of 2011, Spelman and a group of friends launched an arts collective called Sonic Garden. The organization's mission statement, posted on their blog, states: "Based in the micro-urban beach community of Springsteen lore, Asbury Park, NJ, Sonic Garden is an association of musos, writers, architects, baristas, painters, surfers and winos committed to pursuing artistic development through residences, exhibitions, and education programs which foster dialogue across disciplines and barstools."The first public series coincided with the alternative-music festival All Tomorrow’s Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
, and included performances and talks featuring award-winning filmmakers, cartoonists, musicians and visual artists. The TriCity News' Dan Jacobson wrote that: "This is serious stuff. What Spelman is initiating is among the most promising events we've seen for Asbury Park, If it catches on, it could be big. And it could spin off in all different and promising ways for our city."
Discography
Highway Dancing, The Yearlings (Mixmasters, 2008): Producer. The third full-length recording by The Yearlings, a roots/alternative country duo, from Australia. The album featured contributions by Larry Campbell (pedal steel, dobro, mandolin, fiddle), as well as Glenn Patscha, Byron Isaacs, and Tony Leone, members of the Brooklyn-based band OllabelleOllabelle
Ollabelle is a New York based folk music group named after the influential Appalachian songwriter Ola Belle Reed. The group is composed of five singing multi-instrumentalists hailing from disparate parts of the United States, Canada and Australia.-History:...
.
The Virginia EP, The National, (Brassland, 2008). Mixing Engineer, for "Mansion on the Hill," originally recorded by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
.
Guitar Harvest (Solid Air, 2005): Co-producer. A two-CD compilation, featuring Andy Summers
Andy Summers
Andy Summers is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed...
, Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
, Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid is an English-born American guitarist, songwriter, composer, and bandleader. Best known as the founder and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Living Colour, Reid was named #66 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.Critic Steve Huey writes, "[Reid's]...
, Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet.-Biography:...
, Henry Kaiser
Henry Kaiser
Henry Kaiser may refer to:People*Henry Felix Kaiser , American academic known for the varimax rotation*Henry J. Kaiser , American industrialist and shipbuilder who founded Kaiser Permanente...
, Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi is an American Grammy Award-nominated fingerstyle guitarist.-Early life and influences:Though born in Yokosuka, Japan, de Grassi grew up in San Francisco, California, where his grandfather played violin for the San Francisco Symphony and his father was a classical pianist...
and other artists. Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
gave it a four-star review, saying “This largely acoustic set is guaranteed to leave guitar buffs drooling,” while Total Guitar
Total Guitar
Total Guitar is a monthly magazine based in the United Kingdom. The magazine is the best selling guitar magazine in Europe.The magazine is owned by Future Publishing, who publish many other magazines ranging from drums and video games to mountain bikes and knitting magazines.Total Guitar regularly...
noted that “Not only does it feature some of the most astonishing guitar playing we’ve heard all year… but all proceeds go to buying guitars and guitar lessons for inner city kids.”